Manitoba’s sharp new “code red” COVID-19 restrictions kicked in early Thursday as the province tries to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Health officials reported 431 new cases and nine new deaths in the province on Wednesday. Hospitalizations stood at 218, with 32 in intensive care — a record high in the province.
Schools will stay open, but everything from non-essential retail to theatres and restaurant dining rooms will be closed.
Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin, who earlier this week said the province was at a “crossroads in our fight against this pandemic,” urged people to stay home to stop the spread.
In neighbouring Saskatchewan, more than 300 doctors have signed a letter calling for that province to do more to fight the novel virus.
“If more is not done to change our course we are confident that winter will bring overflowing hospitals, cancelled surgeries, overwhelmed health-care providers and needless death,” the letter said.
COVID-19 case numbers have been rising in Saskatchewan, with 112 new cases reported on Wednesday. The latest figures from the province put the number of hospitalizations at 48, with 11 in intensive care.
A letter signed by hundreds of doctors and three major unions representing health-care workers in Alberta sent to Premier Jason Kenney on Thursday made an explicit call for tighter restrictions, including a suspension of many indoor group activities.
“We have reached a juncture where only strong and decisive mandatory measures can prevent our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed,” the letter said.
The letter said the province’s testing system is “strained” and contact tracing capacities “have collapsed.”
“We see no other way to break chains of transmission and decrease cases, than to implement a “circuit breaker” of short, strict measures.”
Alberta is considering stepped-up COVID-19 restrictions, two officials told CBC News, as COVID-19 cases in that province continue to climb. Health officials reported 672 new cases of COVID-19 and seven more deaths on Wednesday. Hospitalizations stood at 217, with 46 people in intensive care.
What’s happening across Canada
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As of 10:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, provinces and territories in Canada had reported a cumulative total of 278,636 confirmed or presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 224,116 cases as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC’s reporting stood at 10,703.
Across Canada’s North, there were two new cases reported on Wednesday: one in Nunvaut and one in the Northwest Territories.
In British Columbia, the Interior Health authority has issued a COVID-19 alert to its residents as cases rise in the region. The health authority, which includes communities like Kamloops and Kelowna, said in a statement that it’s concerned by the upward trend and frequency of new local clusters.
A recent provincial health officer’s order limiting social interactions doesn’t apply to Interior Health, but local health officials said they need the public’s help to prevent further restrictions.
Ontario on Thursday reported 1,575 cases of COVID-19, with 472 in Toronto, 448 in Peel Region, 155 in York Region and 91 in Ottawa. The province reported 15 additional deaths, bringing the number of COVID-19 deaths reported in Ontario since the outbreak began to 3,293.
There were 431 people in hospital with 98 in intensive care, according to a provincial dashboard.
In Quebec on Wednesday, health officials reported 1,378 new COVID-19 cases and 22 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, six of which occurred in the previous 24 hours.
Health officials said today hospitalizations increased by 39, to 573, and 84 patients were in intensive care, a rise of two.
From The Associated Press and Reuters and CBC News, last updated at 9:45 a.m. ET
More than 52 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported around the world with more than 34 million of those listed as recovered, according to a Johns Hopkins University case-tracking tool. The worldwide death toll stood at more than 1,286,000, the university reported.
In Africa, the top public health official says the continent has seen an average eight per cent rise in new coronavirus cases over the past month as infections creep up again in parts of the region of 1.3 billion people.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said “we expected it to happen,” and warned that when the virus comes back for a second wave, “it seems to come back with a lot of full force.” The African continent is approaching two million confirmed cases, including more than 45,000 deaths.
After several months of closure, four million students in Senegal returned to school on Thursday with health instructions to avoid spreading the coronavirus. (John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images)
Nkengasong said that “we are at a critical point in the response,” and again urged governments and citizens to follow public health measures. Testing across Africa remains a challenge, with 19 million tests conducted so far. Countries with the highest increase of cases in the past week include Congo at 37 per cent, Kenya at 34 per cent and Nigeria at 17 per cent.
In the Americas, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and several of his ministers began preventative isolation after coming in close contact with an official infected with coronavirus.
Meanwhile, in the United States Dr. Anthony Fauci said he hopes a broad embrace of public health measures aimed at fighting COVID-19 will allow the country to avoid locking down.
“If you can do that well, you don’t have to take that step that people are trying to avoid, which has so many implications both psychologically and economically,” he said. “We’d like not to do that.”
Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told ABC’s Good Morning America on Thursday that vaccines being developed “are going to have a major positive impact” once they start being deployed. Health-care workers and some high-risk populations could receive vaccines as early as December or early next year, he said. The “ordinary citizen” may be able to get a vaccine sometime between the end of April and June.
In the meantime, Fauci said there are fundamental things Americans can do to stem the spread of the deadly virus. They include “universal and uniform” wearing of masks, avoiding crowds, keeping physical distance, doing as many activities as possible outdoors and washing hands. He said that sounds simple against a very difficult challenge but “it really does make a difference.”
Fauci’s message echoes that of president-elect Joe Biden, who this week signalled strongly that fighting the raging pandemic will be the immediate priority of his administration.
Medical staff members treat a patient suffering from coronavirus in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, earlier this week. (Go Nakamura/Getty Images)
In the Middle East, hundreds of disillusioned doctors are leaving Lebanon amid falling wages and shortages of equipment, staff and even some basic supplies in hospitals as the country runs out of hard currency to pay for imports.
Emirates Group, the owner of the Middle East’s biggest air carrier, reported Thursday it lost $3.8 billion in the first half of the year, its first net loss in over three decades after the pandemic wiped out air travel.
In Europe, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been hospitalized after testing positive for the novel virus. Spokesperson Iuliia Mendel told The Associated Press his symptoms remain mild and there is “nothing serious” in his condition. Zelensky disclosed Monday he contracted the virus.
Mendel said he was moved to a hospital in Kyiv because “there are better conditions for self-isolation and care for coronavirus patients.”
Zelensky’s chief of staff, defence minister and finance minister have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s government ordered non-essential businesses to shut down on weekends to stem the rapid growth of the outbreak.
Health officials reported another record 11,057 coronavirus cases on Thursday. Ukraine has reported a total of 500,865 confirmed cases and 9,145 deaths.
Dozens of hospital workers have held protests at hospitals in Greece, demanding more medical staff be hired as the country struggles to contain a resurgence of the coronavirus that has led to a new lockdown being imposed.
France’s prime minister said now is not the time to relax COVID-19 measures, a day after the country’s total reported cases overtook Russia to become the worst-affected country in Europe.
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Moscow’s mayor said city authorities were expecting cases to increase and that the situation with hospital beds could remain critical for some time, TASS news agency reported.
In the Asia-Pacific region, India has reported 47,905 new cases of coronavirus infection with New Delhi setting another daily record Thursday.
The surge of 8,593 cases in the nation’s capital is the highest for any major Indian city and comes as people crowd shopping areas ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, on Saturday.
A security guard checks the body temperature of a customer outside a shop in a market in New Delhi on Thursday ahead of Diwali. (Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images)
Deaths, too, are climbing again, with 85 in New Delhi in the past 24 hours. Deaths are a lagging indicator of the impact of the virus, due to long periods of illness and medical treatment.
Japan reported record new infections, while Tokyo Olympics organizers said athletes arriving for the Games will not have to isolate for 14 days.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Billie Jean King will become the first individual female athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey announced Tuesday that their bipartisan legislation had passed the House of Representatives and would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The bill to honor King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist, had already passed unanimously in the Senate.
Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that King’s “lifetime of advocacy and hard work changed the landscape for women and girls on the court, in the classroom, and the workplace.”
The bill was introduced last September on the 50th anniversary of King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match of all-time. The medal, awarded by Congress for distinguished achievements and contributions to society, has previously been given to athletes including baseball players Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and golfers Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.
King had already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, says she has “broken barriers, led uncharted paths, and inspired countless people to stand proudly with courage and conviction in the fight for what is right.”
SURREY, B.C. – Premier David Eby says new account control measures for young Instagram users introduced Tuesday by social media giant Meta are the “minimum” expected of tech companies to keep kids safe online.
The parent company of Instagram says users in Canada and elsewhere under 18 will have their accounts set to private by default starting Tuesday, restricting who can send messages, among other parental controls and settings.
Speaking at an unrelated event Tuesday, Eby says the province began talks with social media companies after threatening legislation that would put big tech companies on the hook for “significant potential damages” if they were found negligent in failing to keep kids safe from online predators.
Eby says the case of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old from Prince George, B.C., who took his own life last year after being targeted by a predator on Snapchat, was “horrific and totally preventable.”
He says social media apps are “nothing special,” and should be held to the same child safety standards as anyone who operates a place that invites young people, whether it’s an amusement park, a playground or an online platform.
In a progress report released Tuesday about the province’s engagement with big tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spapchat and X, formerly known as Twitter, the provincial government says the companies are implementing changes, including a “trusted flagger” option to quickly remove intimate images.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says as classrooms get overwhelmed with new grade school students, her government will fast-track new school builds with $8.6 billion over the next three years.
In a televised address Tuesday evening, Smith said the province’s existing budget isn’t enough to keep up with rapid population growth in kindergarten to Grade 12 schools.
“This is quite literally the fastest and largest build our province can manage given available construction workforce capacity and the time it takes to permit, prepare and service available school sites,” said Smith.
The province’s population grew by more than 200,000 people in the last fiscal year.
The premier said often the only thing holding back the cash is school boards getting projects ready for construction.
“If you can prepare the sites, the province will have the dollars set aside to get shovels in the ground,” said Smith.
The government is changing the process of approving construction funding so school boards don’t need to wait every year for the next budget cycle to get the go-ahead.
Previously approved school projects that are now in the planning and design stages could move forward to the next stage as soon as they are ready.
Smith’s announcement comes as the province’s two largest divisions, Edmonton Public Schools and the Calgary Board of Education, say their schools are expected to have a utilization rate of well over 90 per cent this school year, with some schools hitting capacity.
The addition of some $6.5 billion in capital funding would be a significant boost to what was budgeted in February.
Budget 2024 originally earmarked $1.9 billion in capital funding over the next three years for planning, design or construction of new and modernized school projects across the province.
In the summer, the government promised an added $215 million for school boards, including $90 million towards 100 more modular classrooms that are expected to be delivered by the end of the calendar year.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides told The Canadian Press that yearly budget numbers will vary under the new plan because different projects will be able to move forward at different times, but it will mean schools get built as quickly as possible.
“That (new) process will help make sure that it doesn’t take five, six years for schools to get built,” he said.
Smith said she expects the construction could lead to about 50,000 new student spaces over the next three years, and 12,500 new charter school student spaces over the next four years.
Smith also used her television address to take a swipe at Ottawa, accusing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government of “unrestrained” border policies.
Smith said historically high immigration levels – especially for those with temporary visas – is exacerbating housing shortages and challenging education, health and other social services infrastructure.
“Alberta has always welcomed newcomers who possess our shared values – and we will continue to do so,” said Smith, explaining her definition of shared values.
“Welcoming those who believe in working hard, protecting our freedoms, contributing to society, following the rule of law, and who have a deep respect for other cultures and faiths different from their own, have long been a strength of our provincial culture and history.”
Smith called for “more sensible and restrained” policies but did not provide details.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
